One School, One Book

Students To End Up On The Same Page

OLD SAYBROOK — Mike Smith, drawing on the dregs in a big cup of root beer, said Friday his mom bought this summer's required reading, the book ``Love in the Driest Season,'' for him and his brother.

But the Old Saybrook High School senior said he hasn't cracked the cover, and he's pretty sure his younger brother hasn't, either.

``I have to read it before school,'' Smith said.

The same holds true for all 500 students going to Old Saybrook High the end of this month. Each is a participant in a new ``one school/one book'' project cooked up by the English department, which was inspired by similar programs in Connecticut and other states.

The goal of the program is to get as many people as possible to read the same book and then discuss it in various forums. ``It builds community and gives everyone a common ground,'' said Sue Murphy, who has been teaching English at the high school since 1984.

The department had already initiated book chats on a designated day in September, when students and adults who had read the same book on the summer reading list gathered to talk about it. This year, all chats will be about ``Love in the Driest Season,'' by Neely Tucker, who wrote of his harrowing experience as a foreign correspondent in Zimbabwe amid the AIDS crisis, and his adoption of an African baby.

``It took the better part of the year to decide on one book. We thought it would be a piece of cake, but you get a bunch of English teachers together on something like this and it takes awhile,'' said Murphy, who didn't expect the final choice would turn out to be nonfiction.

But she said there is ``enough narrative to engross kids'' and the book is clearly written, contains important information and is gripping, she said.

It has not yet gripped senior Josh King, who had Smith to keep him company as he checked identifications on people coming to the town beach. Perched on a high wooden chair in a square of sand in the parking lot, King admitted he had not given much thought to the Tucker book or to any of the other books he has to read on the summer reading list by the end of this month.

Smith, however, had just finished the latest Harry Potter book, which King assured him ``counted as two books because it's so big.''

Liz Palmeri, also hanging out at the beach Friday and entering her freshman year at Old Saybrook High, dismissed the one book/one school idea as ``dumb.'' But Palmeri did read the Tucker book -- or ``three quarters of it actually'' -- and she said it was ``OK.''